clinton as i said before, the rates under clinton did not have a bad effect on the economy. i agree if you're going to raise things up to 70% or take $5,000 from a middle class family, yeah, that's too much. but the tax rates that bill clinton had were pretty good for america. we need to balance this budget. i am not opposed to more spending cuts. i am not. i am not opposed -- i'm against cutting medicare benefits but i'm in favor of payment reform, which we desperately need to do to control costs. so we can do this. but i don't see any particularly harm other than we are going to go into a recession if we go over the slope. >> if you don't think tax rates matter, why is it that over the last 30 years when ronald reagan became president tax rates all over the world have fallen? they've fallen in europe, asia, south america. i mean, it's happening everywhere because countries want to [ overlapping speakers ] >> i have never said tax rates don't matter. [ overlapping speakers ] >> governor howard dean. >> i adegree, howard, we need stable tax rights. i agree with that. i'd jus